Living briefs

It's a new season of The Apprentice, which, in a drive to warm up cooled-off ratings, has ditched Manhattan, N.Y., for Los Angeles to find the best problem-solver, the sharpest negotiator, and, ideally, the sexiest of the 18 candidates.

A new gimmick for the sixth outing: Contestants on each week's winning team get to live in a luxurious mansion beside Donald Trump's (above) top-of-the-hill mini castle. Contestants on the losing team? They dwell in tents in the backyard.

As another twist, the winning project manager each week will remain in control until he or she loses a challenge, and will sit in the boardroom to help advise Mr. Trump on who should be fired from the opposing team.

COMING ATTRACTIONS

TUNE IN: Lincoln Heights, 7 p.m. Monday, ABC Family

The history of prime-time television is littered with the carcasses of failed family dramas and ratings-starved black dramas. Give ABC Family credit for trying to combine the two in Lincoln Heights, an earnest drama about a black family that moves into an undesirable neighborhood.

The show's focus is on Eddie Sutton (Russell Hornsby, Playmakers), a Los Angeles police officer who moves his wife, Jenn (Nicki Micheaux), and family into the inner-city neighborhood that he patrols and that he grew up in.

Their new home is a former crack house. After four months of work, they move from their apartment into this spacious new abode, where troubles start.

BIRTHDAYS

TODAY'S BIRTHDAYS: Author William Peter Blatty (The Exorcist) is 79. Actor David Caruso is 51. TV personality Katie Couric is 50. Actor Nicolas Cage is 43. Country singer John Rich of Big and Rich is 33. Actor Dustin Diamond (Saved by the Bell: The New Class) is 30. Actor Liam Aiken (Lemony Snicket) is 17.